Islam and "America"

Can the celebration of wine drinking be Islamic? To Ahmed, the answer is: obviously, yes. It is Islamic insofar as this celebration is expressed, for example, in the terms of such classical Sufi metaphors for “the experience of intoxication with the Divine,” as well as the more mundane recognition of wine’s virtues as a social lubricant. The extensive medical literature of the premodern Islamic world attests openly to the latter fact. As the 10th-century physician and philosopher Abu Zayd al-Balkhi put it, “It is wine that provides excellence to society and conversation…and there is nothing that makes possible relations of intimacy and confidence between friends so tastefully and pleasantly and effectively as does drinking wine together.”

To say that wine drinking is un-Islamic may be akin to saying that the refusal to serve in the military during a period of wartime conscription is un-American. In the view of some citizens, such a refusal may well violate the essence of Americanness, in addition to violating American law; to others, however, this act may rather fulfill and epitomize the requirements of citizenship. By Ahmed’s logic, the refusal to serve in the military is not just American in spite of its opposition to other, contradictory values associated with Americanness, but precisely because of it.

The whole article is worth reading, actually. But I'm struck by this particularly. "What is Islam?" then becomes a question like "What is America?" It's a surprisingly all-encompassing question without any easy answers. John Wayne, in describing his love for America, dwelt on her physical beauty. Clearly, from his movies, that wasn't all he loved about America. Trying to figure out what America was and what it ought to be is a major theme of many of his movies, especially the Ford productions like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

What is America? What does it mean to be an American? It seems as if there are at least some wrong answers, so the question isn't meaningless. It seems as if it might overlap with many of the answers one might give to the question "What is Islam?" That's not a meaningless question either, again because there are at least some wrong answers. A problem is that some of the right answers to the second question are wrong answers to the first, and vice-versa.

The difference between Americans and many Muslims lies in the implications of asking the question.

For Americans, asking what America is implies a responsibility of action on the part of the individual. Americans recognize that America is what we make it.

I believe this understanding of what we are, and the level of individual power and responsibility we have, is the root of the frustration that we feel with "moderate" Muslims. These people are not trained to recognize their individual power or responsibility, and as a result, they are not so firmly grounded in our notion of ethics.

There is a philosophy current in Islam, promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, that emphasizes individual helplessness. This philosophy "reasons" that everything is in the hands of God, whose ways are so far beyond human comprehension that evil acts can be seen as part of God's will.

The Hamas Covenant, for instance, has an introduction that states their goal is to destroy their own property and their own souls "in the path of Allah." This teaching, paired with the notion that the religion is the same as the State, is right now being cynically used to recruit disposable evil-doers.

The Muslim Brotherhood has sown the wind, and it is reaping the whirlwind.

There is a philosophy current in Islam, promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, that emphasizes individual helplessness. This philosophy "reasons" that everything is in the hands of God, whose ways are so far beyond human comprehension that evil acts can be seen as part of God's will.

That belief in Inshallah, everything goes by the Will of God not man, has been in Islam ever since or even before they purged the rationalists from the religious orthodoxy in Islam.

The solution of the Inshallah side of Islam to the rationalists and scientists in islam, was to cut their heads off. Problem solved. Even if Muslims want to believe in rationality, they won't take the risk of their heads being cut off for it. It's not worth it.